


drowning.

by whaleing



Category: High School Musical: The Musical: The Series (TV)
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Eating Disorders, F/M, Guilt, Suicide, trigger warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:47:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27547090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whaleing/pseuds/whaleing
Summary: in which they lose her.TW// deals with eating disorders and suicide, read with caution
Relationships: Ricky Bowen/Nini Salazar-Roberts
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	drowning.

**Author's Note:**

> hi! um so this is my first fic, so let me know if you like it!
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING   
> themes of eating disorders, suicide and major character death

she is drowning, unable to hold on. she struggles day to day, bruises on her arms and bags under her eyes. she flinches when they pass her in the corridor but doesn’t utter a word. her eyes flicker nervously, and her heart starts to flutter. 

she begins to fade, and they start to forget. no more good mornings as she walks in faking a smile. no more hugs as she cries into their arms after she runs out of french mid panic attack. no more worried looks as she spaces out not listening to a word. no more reaching out to her and trying to get her to listen. no more yelling at her because ‘why can’t you see you’re killing yourself?’ nothing. 

people begin to notice. they don’t care anymore because they can’t fix her, but they notice. notice how she doesn’t talk in class, nor hang with friends. notice that she is on her phone throughout lunch, trying to seem normal but starving herself. they notice but they don’t say anything. to them she is a lost cause. she is not a person anymore. she is a statistic, lost to mental illness. 

her hair starts to fall out and she passes out in history. she shrugs off concern from her teacher and utters a quiet ‘i’m fine.’ no one believes her. she runs until she’s shaking and avoids the mirror in the changing rooms. she is spiralling, losing herself as the seconds go by. 

at some point she loses it, storms into the bathroom sobbing reaching for the pain relief. she is in so much pain and she wants it to all end. she swallow a handful and takes in a gulp of water. she shudders, and then relaxes. she heads to her room humming lightly, it will all be over soon, and she takes what she hopes to be her last breath. 

it isn’t. she wakes the next morning in agony and lies in bed hysterics for an hour. she doesn’t go to school. instead she plans. she has a notebook and she says goodbye. plain and simple, the one word printed in her small script, it is almost illegible through the tear stains that appear on the paper. she wipes her eyes. 

her mother gets home from work and finds her.   
in a pool of blood with the note neatly on her dresser, propped up next to a photo of her and her friends, when she was happy, when she was better. her mother stands there in shock, she doesn’t know what to do. then she panics. she rushes over and grabs the pale wrist searching for a pulse, praying that her daughter isn’t dead. she lets a tear loose and the dam breaks. her daughter is gone. at sixteen. she will never get married, fall in love, have a child, have the life that her mother intended for her. 

the school is alerted, and everything is in slow motion. they knew she wasn’t well, but never thought it would go this far. they reflect on the lessons they taught her in and cringe as they recall the way she began to lose herself with no one noticing. they wonder how they could have been so oblivious. they have lost a student. who will never finish another year of school or have another birthday. 

no one realises she’s gone until the assembly. they traipse in line by line and sit on the plastic chairs, shifting uncomfortably. they stay quiet as her death is announced. no one moves a muscle. they can’t believe it. tears are shed throughout the hour and they sit there as her face is projected smiling at them widely. but they can see the pain, even then, in the corner waiting to swarm her, waiting to drown her. at some point they snap, unable to do it any longer. they claw at themselves in guilt. they knew something was wrong and yet they gave up on her.

they will never see her laugh again, a pearl of pure happiness. they will never watch her joke around and smile with glee again. they all sit there. silent. they lost her. in her place is a hole, a gaping black hole that will never be filled. 

one day their children will ask, who the girl in the pictures is, why she’s never around. and they will take a deep breath and swallow deeply. they will watch with wide eyes as her story is told, the girl who always smiled, who people confided in, who people trusted and how she lost. lost everything. lost her friends, her mind, her life. 

she thought they didn’t care, and she was right. they did in the end though, only by then it was too late.


End file.
